September, 1997 (continued):
In our last exciting installment, I was in Norrköping, Sweden…
In the morning, I felt normal (and not hungry, even though I hadn’t eaten in 16 hours).
My guess: I had some sort of allergic reaction to something I ate for lunch the previous day. (Not food poisoning, because my intestines seemed normal and there was no vomiting.)
This day’s lunch consisted of curried scampi, followed by a desert of ice cream with cloudberries, a delicacy from the Swedish north.
Looking around for the first time, I discovered that my room had a private balcony overlooking a beautiful lake. Incredibly peaceful. While I was sleeping, the maid must’ve come in. The curtains in my room were closed; I had left them open before collapsing on the bed.
I got up and went to the restaurant when they opened at 7:30 for breakfast. I helped myself to the buffet and took my food outside to the patio, where I sat and watched the lake. It was a bit chilly; everyone else ate inside…but it was great.
That morning I conducted How To Create Maximum Impact Radio Advertising for nearly 100 of NRJ’s salespeople, producers, jocks, and administrative staff. Amazing how much better I felt once the seminar began.
At the end of the seminar, NRJ’s Jacob Laurin presented me with two gifts to mark the occasion: A beautiful porcelain dolphin (apparently there are dolphins in the adjacent animal park)…and a bottle of ketchup.
The latter was to commemorate my status as an American in Sweden; Americans are famous throughout Europe for putting ketchup on their food, wanting ice for their Coke, and expecting air conditioning in their automobiles.
The seminar was followed by lunch, after which I went to my room and made the mistake of logging onto the Internet. I say “mistake” because, as usual, I ended up spending over an hour there. I then took a stroll outdoors through a lightly wooded area adjacent to the hotel.
When I returned less than an hour later, my strength once again had disappeared. I had been invited to join the NRJ crew in an afternoon of swimming with sharks and go-cart racing, but instead I spent the rest of the day & evening in my room, alternately reading, writing, sleeping and staring dumbly at the TV.
Once again dinner time arrived but my appetite was nowhere in sight. (That is quite unusual for me.) I had last eaten at around 12:30PM, and when I went to bed I still felt no hunger.
But, again, when I woke up at 5 o’clock I felt absolutely fine. I pulled down my e-mail messages, replied to some, showered, dressed, and wandered over to the restaurant a little before 7:30.
I was the only person there; I suspect the NRJ people had been up late again having a wild time.
I took a cup of hot chocolate and a roll outside to the patio and sat, watching the sun slowly rise over the water. Even for the countryside, this place was remarkably quiet. One hears a few birds singing, but just a few solos rather than a full chorus.
Vildmarkshotellet
The water on the lake was so smooth that one might have mistaken it for ice. The very slight ripples looked more like creases in snow. The entire effect was so peaceful that I just sat there and watched for half an hour….not reading (as I usually do); just sitting and looking and listening to the silence.
The ride back to Stockholm was much less stressful than the ride to Norrköping had been. The countryside was lushly green, the sun shining, the skies clear. The cloud patterns were unlike any I’ve ever seen: dozens and dozens of small clouds that looked as though they had been painted onto the blue sky with water colors.
For my last two days in Stockholm, I stayed at the Scandic Hotel Slussen. This immediately became my favorite hotel in Stockholm, especially because of its great location…just a five-minute walk from Gamla Stan. Very modern and comfortable.
I suspect I was upgraded into a better room then I was supposed to get. When I arrived, at about 2:30 in the afternoon, they told me my room wasn’t yet ready. I protested that I had only 30 minutes to unwind before beginning a seminar there, and they found another room for me.
The rooms were both modern and modernistic, without being impersonal. Large sunken tub, terrific balcony view overlooking the Riddarfjärden inlet of Lake Mälaren.
After the seminar, Daniel Åkerman and I dined in the hotel restaurant, both of us choosing the “hunter’s buffet.” (The restaurant’s dinner buffet theme changes each month.) Daniel was delighted that the buffet included reindeer meat. I tasted some — this wasn’t my first time — and confirmed that its flavor is not for me.
